Dark Island: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure

By Brent Nichols

What is Tanathos, and why will a mysterious cult kill to find it? Armed with the remnant of a burned map, Colleen Garman is in the Dutch East Indies, trying to solve the mystery of Tanathos. But the South Pacific in the 1920s is a dangerous place, and the cult is hot on her heels.

From a rooftop chase in Java to a showdown in the jungle on an isolated island, she's fighting for her life and trying to stay one step ahead of the cult. The stakes have never been higher. The cult wants to open a portal and let a mad ancient god loose in the world. And Colleen knows the danger is real. The malevolent god has started invading her mind...

Isolated and betrayed, faced with murder and mayhem, Colleen is in the fight of her life. She will need every scrap of courage, every shred of ingenuity, every steam-powered gadget she can devise, if she is ever going to make it off of Dark Island with her life - and her soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brent Nichols
• Release date: Oct 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301355266

Brent Nichols

Brent Nichols is a writer and trainer based in Calgary, Alberta.

Book preview

Dark Island

By Brent Nichols

Copyright 2012 Brent Nichols

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Java Station

Chapter 2 – Girls of the Night and Men of the Dawn

Chapter 3 – The Foundation

Chapter 4 – The Metal Man

Chapter 5 – Night Attack

Chapter 6 – Assault on the Persephone

Chapter 7 – Rage

Chapter 8 – Jail Break

CHAPTER 1 - JAVA STATION

The journey toward darkness took Colleen Garman into a world of blazing sunlight.

She stepped onto the deck of the Britannia and tilted her parasol to block the worst of the tropical sunlight. She didn't like the parasol any better than the blue gingham dress she wore. She had packed some sensible trousers and coveralls, and intended to change into them as soon as the team was ashore.

It's beastly hot, said the woman beside her. Maggie Nelson wore her graying hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her face was generally set in stern, unforgiving lines, but Colleen had discovered a relaxed, friendly, thoroughly likeable woman just under the surface.

And only getting hotter, I'm afraid, said Phillip Carter, the third and final member of their party. He angled his bowler hat to block as much sun as possible. His brown mustache protected his mouth from sunburn, but the tip of his nose was red and beginning to peel. After all, we're moving closer to the equator.

They had travelled from Vancouver to Sydney, Australia, on a grand ocean liner. Now they were on a much smaller ship. The Britannia, despite its grandiose name, was half the tonnage of the Union Steamship Company's Marama. The Britannia had brought them to Batavia on the Java Sea. The next ship would undoubtedly be even smaller.

Stevedores shouted as the Britannia glided up to a wharf. The din was incredible, with the steam engine rumbling, the screw churning the water in reverse at the ship's stern, and a thousand voices crying out in half a dozen languages. A steam whistle shrilled, making Colleen's ears ring, and she leaned on the railing and drank in the sight of the port of Batavia.

The waterfront was a chaotic bustle of humanity. She could see Europeans wearing far too much clothing for the heat, Arabs and Chinese, and the short, wiry, brown-skinned indigenous population. Smells washed over her, spices and diesel, coal smoke and sweat, coffee and rubber, salt water and oil.

Oh, it will be so nice to be back on terra firma, Maggie said.

Carter nodded his agreement, but added, Just keep your eyes open. It's a dangerous game we're playing.

There were a dozen passengers on the Britannia, mostly Dutch with a smattering of Australians. Maggie and Carter, Americans, and Colleen, Canadian, were the only North Americans on board. The crew seemed to have been cobbled together from every port in the South Pacific. The passengers clustered together along the railing and waited while sailors with every skin color known to humanity brought their luggage up from below.

Colleen travelled with a single suitcase, to the astonishment of Carter, who used a steamer trunk, and Maggie, who got by with a trunk, a hat box, and a portmanteau. When all of their luggage reached the deck they appropriated a handcart and headed for the gangplank.

Carter was an experienced traveller who'd gone around the world investigating the nameless cult the three of them were dedicated to fighting. Colleen was happy to follow his lead, turning her attention to the bustling crowd instead. She was struck by the prosperity of the Europeans she saw, and the near-poverty of almost everyone else.

On the other hand, rope sandals and ragged shorts had to be a good deal more comfortable in this heat than a three-piece suit. Perhaps it wasn't poverty she was seeing, but common sense.

The crowd thinned a bit and she saw a white man sitting on a barrel, gazing at the passing crowd. He was an exception to the general rule, being visibly down-at-heel. His trousers might once have been part of a suit, but they were patched at the knees now, and a dingy white shirt, canvas shoes, and a cloth cap completed his ensemble.

A pair of swarthy men in long robes walked past, gesticulating as they spoke in a strange language. Colleen stared, fascinated by their turbans and pointed beards, until they vanished in the crowd. Then she glanced back at the tattered white man.

He was staring at her.

Not at her exactly. He was staring at all three of them, but when he saw that she saw him he quickly looked away. He seemed to be staring now at the passing crowd, but there was a new stiffness in his posture. She had the distinct impression that he was watching her from the corner of his eye.

Troubled, she glanced at her companions. Carter, a map in one hand and a notebook in the other, was thoroughly preoccupied, but Maggie caught her glance and said, Is something wrong?

There's a man off to my left, Colleen said. He was staring.

Maggie swivelled her eyes without turning her head. That enormous African fellow?

No, a white man on a barrel. Fair hair, dressed like a tramp, could be any age from thirty to fifty.

Ah, I see him. Maggie nodded. Well, he's not paying attention to you now. You're a pretty girl, Colleen. Men are going to look at you, you know.

Colleen smiled at the compliment, but she wasn't convinced. The look on his face had been... intense. Alarmed, even. Closer to horrorstruck than lovestruck. Well, I'm not going to spend the rest of the trip wondering and worrying. She started walking toward him.

He stiffened, not quite looking at her, but tilting his head to keep her in the corner of his eye. When she was a dozen feet away, he hopped off of the barrel and walked briskly away. In an instant he'd vanished into the crowd.

Colleen returned to the others. Carter fixed her with a peevish stare. You musn't go off on your own, Colleen. It isn't safe.

All right, she said, and peered over her shoulder. The man was still gone from sight.

He's right, you know, said Maggie. It's not just our adversaries. This isn't the most civilized place in the world. There is all sorts of trouble you could get into. She smiled. It's not that you can't take care of yourself. You've proved that well enough. I just hate to borrow trouble.

Lord knows we've got trouble enough already, Carter muttered. Come on, let's see if we can find a taxi. He grabbed the handle of the luggage cart and trudged inland.

The two women followed. Colleen glanced back occasionally, and sometimes caught a glimpse of a pale face or a dingy shirt appearing and disappearing in the crowd. She shrugged. If they were being followed, there was little they could do about it. Perhaps the taxi would be enough to shake their tail, if she wasn't imagining it.

They cleared the wharf, reached a major street, and stood for a time watching traffic flow past. There were horses, ox-drawn carts, cars, and countless pedestrians. A chugging sound and rising puffs of dark smoke heralded the arrival of a coal-powered tram.

Some parts of the city have an electric tram now, said Maggie. Soon the age of steam will be over.

Colleen nodded sadly. Diesel engines were showing up on locomotives and ships with increasing frequency. The internal-combustion engine was undeniably a modern marvel, but she was going to miss the elegant simplicity of coal and steam.

Eventually Carter flagged a rattletrap yellow taxi. He and the driver loaded up the luggage, a process which ended up taking more time than the actual journey. The taxi dropped them off a scant two blocks later in front of the King Gustav Hotel, a once-fine colonial building now rapidly going to seed.

Their shadow caught up with them as the luggage was being unloaded. Colleen watched his reflection in a hotel window, perplexed. He had no hope of going unnoticed. His white face made him stand out from the crowd around him, and his shabby clothes and lack of purpose set him apart from the few other Europeans.

Yet he was clearly nervous. He stood in plain sight of Colleen and her companions, looking around in every direction, as anxious as a shoplifter in a police station. There was no doubt that he was following them. Every time his eyes strayed toward Colleen he looked away with almost comical haste.

She turned to Maggie. I'll be along in a moment. There's something I have to do.

No, wait, you-

Colleen walked away before Maggie could finish her protest. She felt a prickle of anxiety at this separation from her friends. The exotic, bustling strangeness of Batavia put her on edge. The cult had shown itself quite capable of murder, and someone could plant a knife in her back and vanish into the